Hexagram 23 as yes or no
Hexagram 23 Peeling Away as a yes-or-no answer
As an answer to a 'should I' question, Bo says no — 'not favourable to go anywhere' is the whole judgment. Any initiative launched now is launched into decline; the Tuan says the superior person 'yields and stops', watching the images rather than acting on them. If the question is whether to start, expand, commit or push, the answer is to wait. If it is whether to protect what you have, the answer is yes, and the Great Image says how: strengthen what is beneath you.
The changing line tells how far the stripping has gone. In the lower trigram it is early and unfelt (lines one and two) or at the point where you must separate from those doing the damage (line three): in all three cases, do not advance. In the upper trigram the harm has arrived (line four, endure it), or the turn is beginning — the many yielding to the one (line five), the last fruit kept uneaten (line six). Only those two lines soften the no, and what they allow is holding on, not setting out.
The hexagram in brief
The mountain worn down by the earth beneath: yin has grown until one yang line remains at the top. Not a time to go anywhere; the structure is peeling away.
Hold still, give generously to those below, and preserve the last seed — the big fruit at the top is not eaten and will sprout again.
The judgment
剝：不利有攸往。Po indicates that (in the state which it symbolises) it will not be advantageous to make a movement in any direction whatever.
Which line changed?
A changing line sharpens the answer. Each line of 剝 Peeling Away has its own page:
- 初六Six at the beginningthe bed's legs · stripping the base · quiet ruin
- 六二Six in the second placethe bed's frame · no allies · decay spreads
- 六三Six in the third placeamong the strippers · yet no blame · loyal to the top
- 六四Six in the fourth placestripping the skin · disaster near · evil
- 六五Six in the fifth placea string of fish · leading the court · favour without fault
- 上九Nine at the topthe great fruit · the carriage · the small man's hut
The same hexagram for
Questions
- Does hexagram 23, Peeling Away, mean yes or no?
- As an answer to a 'should I' question, Bo says no — 'not favourable to go anywhere' is the whole judgment. Any initiative launched now is launched into decline; the Tuan says the superior person 'yields and stops', watching the images rather than acting on them. If the question is whether to start, expand, commit or push, the answer is to wait. If it is whether to protect what you have, the answer is yes, and the Great Image says how: strengthen what is beneath you.
- What does Hexagram 23, 剝 Peeling Away, mean?
- The mountain worn down by the earth beneath: yin has grown until one yang line remains at the top. Not a time to go anywhere; the structure is peeling away.
Chinese text: the received Zhouyi (Wuyingdian lineage). English: James Legge, The Yî King, Sacred Books of the East XVI, 1882 (public domain).